VOSTOCHNY SPACEPORT/Amur Region/, December 27. /TASS/. Small satellites of the United States, Japan, Spain, the South African Republic and Germany launched by the Soyuz-2.1a carrier rocket from the Vostochny spaceport on Thursday have been placed into designated orbits, Glavkosmos, an operator of commercial missions, said.

The Fregat upper stage delivered 26 foreign satellites and two Kanopus-V remote sensing satellites to the low earth orbit. "After the flights program the Fregat booster will sink in the non-navigable area of the Pacific Ocean," the operator said.

The company said Japan’s GRUS spacecraft, Germany’s iSAT, UWE-4, Sparrow, and eight US Lemur satellites separated from the Frigat booster between 7.33 a.m. and 7.50 a.m. Moscow Time on the orbits at the height of nearly 585 kilometers.

Spain’s Lume-1 satellite, the South African Republic’s ZACube-2 and 12 US Dove satellites also separated from the upper stage at between 9.13 a.m. and 9.43 a.m. local time on the orbits at the height of nearly 495 kilometers.

"Later, the small spacecraft will be managed by the customer companies of the launch services," the operator said.

The Soyuz-2.1a carrier rocket was launched from the Vostochny spaceport at 5.07 a.m. Moscow time. This was the fourth launch from the Vostochny spaceport in Russia's Far East.